Published PCT Application WO 96/10795 to Phonetic Systems Ltd. is a database accessing system in which each database entry includes at least one word. For example, each entry in a zipcode directory may include some or all of the following words: state name, street name, street type, house number, locality. The system's similar word finder finds, for at least one interpretation of each representation in a sequence of representations of possibly erroneous user inputs, at least one database word which is similar to that interpretation. Similarity values are then assigned for relevant entries in the database, for each database word found by the similar word finder.
Wildfire is an electronic assistant that understands spoken commands and manages telephone-related tasks including maintaining a user's contact list and letting the user "voicedial" outgoing calls. The Wildfire system, for example, may hold the following dialogue with a user:
User: "Call" PA1 Wildfire: "Call whom?" PA1 User: "J. C. Wizer" PA1 Wildfire: "At which place?" PA1 User: "CAR!" PA1 Wildfire: "Dialling." (Wildfire dials).
The disclosures of all publications mentioned in the specification and of the publications cited therein are hereby incorporated by reference.